I liked the "first" game (ie. the reboot), but I hope they steer away from the borderline torture porn this time around. Tomb Raider felt really exploitive for large stretches of the game.

you are familiar with the 'old' Lara Croft aren't you?

Yes. Your point being?

The original Tomb Raider games were misogynistic. This one was exploitive. There's a difference, and I'm less comfortable with the latter since the former can more easily be disregarded as dumb (in the case of Tomb Raider at least). Try playing through Tomb Raider (the reboot) and imagine the favorite male lead game character in her place. You won't be able to, because male characters aren't subjected to this kind of abuse as leads, and if they are they take it with stride and a witty comment. Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me. I felt really uncomfortable through large stretches of the game, and it wasn't the good kind of uncomfortable that good storytelling can do (such as the discomfort you feel watching the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones, to take an example of something that also deals with lead women in pain).

For the record, I greatly enjoyed the game and got a 100% rating in it before I put it down when I played it during the Steam sales. It's the exploitation in the storytelling, both visually and narratively, that bothers me. Not the game itself.

Edit: The "misogynistic" comment above is purely in regard to Lara's boobs in the early games. That's what people tend to focus on. Apart from that, Lara was a good female character that early on in the games industry.

Crap, I take it back. "Misogynistic" isn't the word I should have used. Let's call both "exploitive", but in different ways. The newer game is actually more misogynistic than the older ones, which kind of renders my point moot, except that I rather clumsily used the wrong words to describe what I'm thinking.

I liked the "first" game (ie. the reboot), but I hope they steer away from the borderline torture porn this time around. Tomb Raider felt really exploitive for large stretches of the game.

you are familiar with the 'old' Lara Croft aren't you?

Yes. Your point being?

The original Tomb Raider games were misogynistic. This one was exploitive. There's a difference, and I'm less comfortable with the latter since the former can more easily be disregarded as dumb (in the case of Tomb Raider at least). Try playing through Tomb Raider (the reboot) and imagine the favorite male lead game character in her place. You won't be able to, because male characters aren't subjected to this kind of abuse as leads, and if they are they take it with stride and a witty comment. Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me. I felt really uncomfortable through large stretches of the game, and it wasn't the good kind of uncomfortable that good storytelling can do (such as the discomfort you feel watching the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones, to take an example of something that also deals with lead women in pain).

For the record, I greatly enjoyed the game and got a 100% rating in it before I put it down when I played it during the Steam sales. It's the exploitation in the storytelling, both visually and narratively, that bothers me. Not the game itself.

Edit: The "misogynistic" comment above is purely in regard to Lara's boobs in the early games. That's what people tend to focus on. Apart from that, Lara was a good female character that early on in the games industry.

I don't see it as exploitive at all. Instead I felt like they were just trying to make Lara look like a total badass, especially compared to the other good NPCs in the game. Hell that one guy sacrificed himself trying to impress Lara and be as heroic as her.

So to me it's not exploitive. Unrealistic is the word I would use, she gets a piece of Rebar through her side early on in the game, gets shot countless times, falls off of I don't know how many cliffs, and keeps on ticking. She is a badass, an unrealistic badass, but a badass none the less.

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" And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason." Isaac Asimov

I don't see it as exploitive at all. Instead I felt like they were just trying to make Lara look like a total badass, especially compared to the other good NPCs in the game. Hell that one guy sacrificed himself trying to impress Lara and be as heroic as her.

You're completely ignoring what I actually said, which was this:

Quote from: TiLT

Try playing through Tomb Raider (the reboot) and imagine the favorite male lead game character in her place. You won't be able to, because male characters aren't subjected to this kind of abuse as leads, and if they are they take it with stride and a witty comment. Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me.

Try playing through Tomb Raider (the reboot) and imagine the favorite male lead game character in her place. You won't be able to, because male characters aren't subjected to this kind of abuse as leads, and if they are they take it with stride and a witty comment. Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me.

She is a kid...grunting,moaning,crying and suffering is what this game is trying to say because this is Lara before she was a badass,this is Lara as an 'innocent' this game is not just a reboot it's an Origins story...and yeah,as you said you could not be that offended with the old Lara because it was kind of dumb,this one goes for reality and gritty,I don't think the devs were going for 'Lighter' anyway,they weren't going for "taking it in their stride with a witty comment"

The next game,probably won't be lighter either,but she should start to lose her fears and mentally and physically be more sound

Quote from: TiLT on August 01, 2013, 10:00:04 PM

Try playing through Tomb Raider (the reboot) and imagine the favorite male lead game character in her place. You won't be able to, because male characters aren't subjected to this kind of abuse as leads, and if they are they take it with stride and a witty comment.

I don't see it as exploitive at all. Instead I felt like they were just trying to make Lara look like a total badass, especially compared to the other good NPCs in the game. Hell that one guy sacrificed himself trying to impress Lara and be as heroic as her.

You're completely ignoring what I actually said, which was this:

Quote from: TiLT

Try playing through Tomb Raider (the reboot) and imagine the favorite male lead game character in her place. You won't be able to, because male characters aren't subjected to this kind of abuse as leads, and if they are they take it with stride and a witty comment. Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me.

I didn't ignore it, I just think you are off base and being overly sensitive to Lara's realistic and sensitive reactions to totally unrealistic action. If anyone,(let alone a teenageer) was put into that situation and somehow survived the various stabbings, falls, gunshots, ledge grabs, etc., how the hell do you think they would react. They sure as hell wouldn't be cracking jokes left and right. They made Lara much more human than Nathan Drake is. And to me that is not exploitive.

Logged

" And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason." Isaac Asimov

I don't see it as exploitive at all. Instead I felt like they were just trying to make Lara look like a total badass, especially compared to the other good NPCs in the game. Hell that one guy sacrificed himself trying to impress Lara and be as heroic as her.

You're completely ignoring what I actually said, which was this:

Quote from: TiLT

Try playing through Tomb Raider (the reboot) and imagine the favorite male lead game character in her place. You won't be able to, because male characters aren't subjected to this kind of abuse as leads, and if they are they take it with stride and a witty comment. Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me.

I didn't ignore it, I just think you are off base and being overly sensitive to Lara's realistic and sensitive reactions to totally unrealistic action. If anyone,(let alone a teenageer) was put into that situation and somehow survived the various stabbings, falls, gunshots, ledge grabs, etc., how the hell do you think they would react. They sure as hell wouldn't be cracking jokes left and right. They made Lara much more human than Nathan Drake is. And to me that is not exploitive.

Missing my point again, though it's a tricky topic so I'm not blaming you. It's the situations she's put through that's the big issue, and when combined with how she reacts to them, it becomes a problem. The storytellers went out of their way to hurt Lara in this game, something we rarely see in games with male protagonists. When we do, they almost never moan and struggle like she has to, and they most certainly don't cry.

I don't see it as exploitive at all. Instead I felt like they were just trying to make Lara look like a total badass, especially compared to the other good NPCs in the game. Hell that one guy sacrificed himself trying to impress Lara and be as heroic as her.

You're completely ignoring what I actually said, which was this:

Quote from: TiLT

Try playing through Tomb Raider (the reboot) and imagine the favorite male lead game character in her place. You won't be able to, because male characters aren't subjected to this kind of abuse as leads, and if they are they take it with stride and a witty comment. Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me.

I didn't ignore it, I just think you are off base and being overly sensitive to Lara's realistic and sensitive reactions to totally unrealistic action. If anyone,(let alone a teenageer) was put into that situation and somehow survived the various stabbings, falls, gunshots, ledge grabs, etc., how the hell do you think they would react. They sure as hell wouldn't be cracking jokes left and right. They made Lara much more human than Nathan Drake is. And to me that is not exploitive.

Missing my point again, though it's a tricky topic so I'm not blaming you. It's the situations she's put through that's the big issue, and when combined with how she reacts to them, it becomes a problem. The storytellers went out of their way to hurt Lara in this game, something we rarely see in games with male protagonists. When we do, they almost never moan and struggle like she has to, and they most certainly don't cry.

I'm really not missing your point. What you see as exploitive, I see as intentionally trying to make someone look human while at the same time making them look like a badass. No point missed.

Logged

" And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason." Isaac Asimov

Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me. I felt really uncomfortable through large stretches of the game, and it wasn't the good kind of uncomfortable that good storytelling can do (such as the discomfort you feel watching the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones, to take an example of something that also deals with lead women in pain).

How is this exploiting women? I didn't find the grunting and crying sexual. If Nate from Uncharted fell on spikes, he would probably make some noise too. Are most female tennis players exploiting women because their grunts sound almost sexual in nature?

A few times the camera moved to some questionable positions while Lara was crawling through caves. Those were the only times I thought that the developers were trying to titillate.

Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me. I felt really uncomfortable through large stretches of the game, and it wasn't the good kind of uncomfortable that good storytelling can do (such as the discomfort you feel watching the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones, to take an example of something that also deals with lead women in pain).

How is this exploiting women? I didn't find the grunting and crying sexual. If Nate from Uncharted fell on spikes, he would probably make some noise too. Are most female tennis players exploiting women because their grunts sound almost sexual in nature?

I think TiLT is talking about something different, and I'm not sure how to put it. The game is putting a female in the lead, which is a step almost no games do. They're making her a badass, but are they also playing up female vulnerability stereotypes? I think that's the question TiLT's asking.

Here's the best analogy I can think of, which is admittedly very poor. You're watching a movie and the male lead gets pulled over by a cop. The cop walks up to the car and turns out to be female. Do you think "oh! it's a lady cop!" or just "yes, there is the cop." Is the filmmaker playing up the former? Did the filmmaker throw in some kind of flirting moment in the scene just because the cop was female? Some little joke about it?

Similarly, in Tomb Raider, is Lara being made to have extra pain and suffering to play up stereotypes about female vulnerability?

Oh maybe this is a better analogy. You ever watch a movie where there just out of the blue there happens to be a baby or a child trapped in a car? Oh no, not a child! There's no real reason there would be a child in that scene, but the filmmaker is playing up viewer feelings about children in danger just to make the scene have more impact.

In Tomb Raider, are they playing up the player's feelings about a woman being made to suffer (oh heavens, not a woman!) or are they truly treating Lara the same way they would have treated a male lead in this type of game?

I don't know where I fall in interpreting the game, because I think games like Last of Us show that even male leads in games can be shown to be something other than an invincible unstoppable macho force. I also could be completely missing TiLT's point, in which case, never mind.

Thank you wonderpug. That helps illuminate what I'm trying to say. I haven't said anything about sexuality, beyond the reference to Lara's boob size in the original games. When I say "exploitation", I'm decidedly not referencing anything sexual in nature. It feels like the storytellers are going the extra mile to make Lara suffer in this game, not necessarily because it makes sense to the story (as I said, a male character wouldn't be crying at all, or showing pain so often, and he'd usually have a quip ready for whenever he does) but because they think making a woman look vulnerable and hurt is the only way to make the average gamer feel any interest at all in playing a female character. It's something that industry experts have been talking about for a while. Women in games doesn't sell, or at least so the market research indicates. Instead the Tomb Raider developers apparently decided to play up the vulnerability angle to make the players feel like they are protecting her. That's exploitation, and it has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with power, seen from a male perspective, and it needs to go away if the games industry is ever going to truly grow up.

Quote from: wonderpug on August 02, 2013, 03:32:19 PM

TiLT, have you played Last of Us? And if you have, how do you feel the male protagonist there was treated in comparison to Lara?

Yeah, I've played The Last of Us. Here are my thoughts about what you're asking:

Spoiler for Hiden:

The male lead is in full control for the entirety of the game, not complaining even when hurt and never appearing weak except when he's completely knocked out of action because of traumatic injury.

Having said that, The Last of Us is one of the best examples of mature, respectful storytelling out there. It's not exploitive of either men or women.

I was more interested in knowing where she got her skeleton replaced with adamantium. She hits multiple surfaces of both wood and metal with enough force to break and/or bend them, yet her bones don't fracture.

If Lara behaved like Joel, it would be a completely unrealistic portrayal. Joel is a ruthless mercenary, why would he break down and cry when he got hurt? Lara hasn't even seen combat and is thrust in this new situation. Her reactions are very similar to the lead male character in Farcry 3 who also starts out very squirmish about having to kill anyone.

She's really not a lot different (in the remake) than the guy in Far Cry 3...so yes I can easily see a non-god mode male character going through the same struggles she did starting out. Crap...Skystride beat me to it

The guy you play in Far Cry 3 complains a bit during the first 10 minutes or so, and then he's turned into a killing machine with no regrets and an almost maniacal degree of enjoyment of what he's doing. It's not comparable to Tomb Raider, except as a way to reinforce my point.

That's part of the storyline regarding the magic of tatoos so it's irrelevant. The point is that Lara behaves pretty realistically in her situation. It could have easily been a guy in her position and we would have commended the developers for doing a good job of showing how someone transitions from being totally inexperienced to do what's necessary to survive. If other games don't do a good job of showing male vulnerability, it's not a fault of Tomb Raider, other devs need to step up.

Lara in TR just wasn't a strong enough character to carry the story, or get past the character issues. They'll need to invest more into a recurring cast of characters that she can spend more time with. Build the TR series into something not just about her, but people she, and you, actually care for together. Often the best way to bring out character is in how they interact with others, and how they break with what's expected.

This will also heighten the feeling of lone adventurer in a dangerous ruin when she finally goes off on her own. Just as they learned a lot from Uncharted, and even improved on its gameplay, they should learn a bit more about the story and characters, and keep the gameplay. Well, maybe not make everything so gun happy on what's supposed to be an isolated island.

Lara in TR just wasn't a strong enough character to carry the story, or get past the character issues. They'll need to invest more into a recurring cast of characters that she can spend more time with. Build the TR series into something not just about her, but people she, and you, actually care for together. Often the best way to bring out character is in how they interact with others, and how they break with what's expected.

That's a good point that I hadn't thought about. Lara doesn't really have much of a personality in this game. The personalities are the NPCs, who stand out in the story while Lara just grunts and cries her way through. Not that I think the devs had much choice. The earlier Tomb Raider games didn't exactly give them much to work with, so making her more interesting would potentially have hurt the continuity.

Argh, you're moving the argument in circles. I already replied to this exact argument several posts ago. You're missing the point by focusing on Lara's reactions. This is about the situations.

Do I really have to explain my argument again?

No you don't have to explain it for the 15th time and be condescending about it again. We got your point the first time. We disagree with you, people are aloud to do that. And your argument that male leads don't get put in rough situations is total BS. The entire point of every action game out there is the main hero overcoming rough situations.

Logged

" And they are a strong and frightening force, impervious to, and immunized against, the feeble lance of mere reason." Isaac Asimov

Thank you wonderpug. That helps illuminate what I'm trying to say. I haven't said anything about sexuality, beyond the reference to Lara's boob size in the original games. When I say "exploitation", I'm decidedly not referencing anything sexual in nature. It feels like the storytellers are going the extra mile to make Lara suffer in this game, not necessarily because it makes sense to the story (as I said, a male character wouldn't be crying at all, or showing pain so often, and he'd usually have a quip ready for whenever he does) but because they think making a woman look vulnerable and hurt is the only way to make the average gamer feel any interest at all in playing a female character.

I would completely disagree with all of that. You saw them "going the extra mile to make her suffer", and I saw someone reacting refreshingly realistically, albeit in a wholly unrealistic scenario. The fact that Lara cried, moaned, and actually reacted to what happened rather than brushing it off with a quip is what made the game intriguing for me. A character who showed emotion gave me an emotional investment in the game...the fact that she was female had zero to do with it. Replace Lara with a male character expressing the same emotion and reaction, and I wouldn't have enjoyed the game any less.

The fact that the gaming industry as a whole chooses to position male leads as grunting Supermen is another discussion, and I have a hard time calling the TR developers "exploitative" simply because hey chose to go a realistic route with this particular character.

I don't see it as exploitive at all. Instead I felt like they were just trying to make Lara look like a total badass, especially compared to the other good NPCs in the game. Hell that one guy sacrificed himself trying to impress Lara and be as heroic as her.

You're completely ignoring what I actually said, which was this:

Quote from: TiLT

Try playing through Tomb Raider (the reboot) and imagine the favorite male lead game character in her place. You won't be able to, because male characters aren't subjected to this kind of abuse as leads, and if they are they take it with stride and a witty comment. Lara Croft spends the vast majority of this game grunting, moaning and crying from pain and suffering. There's not really a message being told through all of this, nor is there something to make it all feel lighter. It comes off as hurting Lara for no other reason than to seem dark, and that's exploitive to me.

I didn't ignore it, I just think you are off base and being overly sensitive to Lara's realistic and sensitive reactions to totally unrealistic action. If anyone,(let alone a teenageer) was put into that situation and somehow survived the various stabbings, falls, gunshots, ledge grabs, etc., how the hell do you think they would react. They sure as hell wouldn't be cracking jokes left and right. They made Lara much more human than Nathan Drake is. And to me that is not exploitive.

Missing my point again, though it's a tricky topic so I'm not blaming you. It's the situations she's put through that's the big issue, and when combined with how she reacts to them, it becomes a problem. The storytellers went out of their way to hurt Lara in this game, something we rarely see in games with male protagonists. When we do, they almost never moan and struggle like she has to, and they most certainly don't cry.

I don't think they went out of their way to hurt Laura. I think they were trying to visualize it more than past games in FPS and third person shooters. I think those games it was implied. Falling down from a high ledge usually gave you a health percentage loss and a flash of red screen, or maybe some blood splatter on your display, but it was never fleshed out. Or being shot at and hit with bullets, you just saw hp slowly go down, and healing meant walking over a med pack, and magically you regained 15 hp. It was left to the imagination.

Here in TR, they showed you the consequence, and while doing that, made Laura's character more real. You saw Laura applied first aid and while doing so you saw her pain and reaction to it. Yes, not totally realistic becuase it would take days/months to heal, but there has to be some compromise. Because of how they did this game, you felt a connection to the person you were controlling.

I hope more games goes this route of making the world you play in more believable. Not once did I feel that this was violence porn, or it was exploited.

and as a counterpoint to "i just like a new take on a lead character" - the genre that IS most often associated with vulnerable, young emotional male leads is the jrpg. these leads are almost universally derided amoung the male dominated gamerspace as "whiny, angsty and emo" (though probably not emo so much any more as its fallen out of use). i bet there are examples in these very forums

I don't think they went out of their way to hurt Laura. I think they were trying to visualize it more than past games in FPS and third person shooters.

i think (and i hate to speak for tilt here so tell me to F-off if im wrong) part of the point is that tilt isnt surprised that a studio "trying to visualize it more than past games in FPS and third person shooters" used a young female for this new experiment. a bit disgusted, but not surprised(and no the exploding gib storm of your quake avatar didnt count!)

Not surprised at all. As mentioned earlier, there are certain rules in marketing that dictate what you can and can't do with lead characters. The primary rule is that your lead character must be a man, and he must be white. Any time you break these rules, you lose sales (that's the basic gist of the market research anyway). To counteract the loss of sales by having a woman as the lead character, the easiest solution is to appeal to the male player's protective instincts. It's annoyingly transparent and well known, and that many of you refuse to see through this paper-thin situation is even more annoying.

Ask yourselves this: Even if you appreciate the added realism of having someone suffer in the bad situation in which they're put (which I certainly don't have a problem with as long as it's not overdone), do you really think it's a coincidence that the first game in a long time to do this uses a female lead character?

Ask yourselves this: Even if you appreciate the added realism of having someone suffer in the bad situation in which they're put (which I certainly don't have a problem with as long as it's not overdone), do you really think it's a coincidence that the first game in a long time to do this uses a female lead character?

It's the direction the developers of the Tomb Raider series decided to take. You know, the franchise that is built solely around a female lead?

For the record, I get what you're saying. I just don't agree that marketing was the entire reason they chose to go that design route.

Ask yourselves this: Even if you appreciate the added realism of having someone suffer in the bad situation in which they're put (which I certainly don't have a problem with as long as it's not overdone), do you really think it's a coincidence that the first game in a long time to do this uses a female lead character?

It's the direction the developers of the Tomb Raider series decided to take. You know, the franchise that is built solely around a female lead?

For the record, I get what you're saying. I just don't agree that marketing was the entire reason they chose to go that design route.

Nor that it's a cheap move on their part. A lot of care and skill went into making this game, and the designers clearly cared about the character. It is the farthest thing from the manipulative cash grab that TiLT is making it out to be.